EEZ Opening for Stripers Considered Again

[Hooper]

Well, here's the issue for me. I have a hard time with a guy, recreational skipper or charter guy, or even a hook and line commercial fisherman, catching bass in federal waters. Having said that, the law is the law and should be adhered to, period. Any violation is subject to penalty, ok, fine. But, what is worse here.... a charter skipper fishing Orion Shoal with a family and gets written up by the Coasties, or the dragger at the BB Bouy in the fall dumping 30+ pound bass back in the water to die because they are not allowed to keep them?

Hu? What is that? The whole thing just demonstrates that our fisheries laws are really archaic and make not sense at all.

[Mr. Sandman]

Originally Posted by Hooper

The whole thing just demonstrates that our fisheries laws are really archaic and make not sense at all.

Exactly. All it will take is someone with some nads to force some sensible regs. MA learders are connected at the hip with the commerical fishing industry. You must fire every single one of them starting at the top and start anew.

Look, IMO no striped bass should ever die usless like that. In fact there should be a serious fine for doing so. If a comm fishermen takes them as a by catch or by accident or out of season AT A MIMIMUM they should come off the top of the comm quota, not die useless at sea unacountable.

[capesams]

Look, IMO no striped bass should ever die usless like that. In fact there should be a serious fine for doing so. If a comm fishermen takes them as a by catch or by accident or out of season AT A MIMIMUM they should come off the top of the comm quota, not die useless at sea unacountable.

this could be done, but then it'd only take a few draggers to kill the season for everyone.

draggers are bringing up net fulls long after the seaon is over..you still have dead fish reguardless.

the old com. gang will still fish offshore where the fish are reguardless of any line on any map or gps till they can no longer stand up in a boat.

now what?..point is...you'll never stop them unless there is no selling season ANYWHERE.But thats only for the hook an line guy....draggers will always kill ..season or no selling season.

ps...saveing the bait is what should be looked into...no bait- no fish.

[Mr. Sandman]

Originally Posted by capesams

this could be done, but then it'd only take a few draggers to kill the season for everyone.

draggers are bringing up net fulls long after the season is over..you still have dead fish regardless.

the old com. gang will still fish offshore where the fish are regardless of any line on any map or gps till they can no longer stand up in a boat.

now what?..point is...you'll never stop them unless there is no selling season ANYWHERE.But thats only for the hook an line guy....draggers will always kill ..season or no selling season.

ps...saveing the bait is what should be looked into...no bait- no fish.

Exactly, Now you see my point! This is an issue that all comm fishermen must work out amongst themselves. Who is going to kill the SB? My point is that it needs to be limited to whatever the quota is an no more...for any reason. If they overshoot the quota, it comes off the top of the next years quota.

This is why I see no need for a rod and reel SB comm fishery. (and I have a lic) The quota can be reached with the by-catch of full time comm fishermen alone. whats the point? I have asked this very question to the director himself and his answer was..."it is an historical fishery"....my response was "so....that is not a reason, slavery was "historical" too but we got past that"

Bait or no bait...overfishing and waste needs to be stopped. Bait is not the entire problem. dumping perfectly good dead fish is wrong and an outright waste of our resource.

[fishsmith]

on the flip side, most stripers are lean if not downright skinny.
If you don't cull the heard, their food supply (bait) with starve them.

[capesams]

alot of big draggers are owned by lawyers-doctors-corp. companies as an investment..those same folks also donate lots of funding to our rep's in the goverment....they win..not the fish.

As a general rule overages do come out of the next years quota in sb.

I'm sorry to say that 96% of the com. fisherman I know would never get together on anything...they'll do what it takes to catch the very last fish swimming in the sea.

[Bass Babe]

The problem with commercial dragging is that it's very indiscriminant. If laws were passed to limit poundage of bycatch, the fisheries would be closed after a couple days. Not to say that bycatch is a good thing, but how much can be done to limit it if gear technology just can't do anything about it? People like to eat what is caught by the comm. guys. And although it's not talked about much, they do contribute to the economy. Maybe not as much as recreational fishing, but comm. boats use fuel, ice, gear, and supplies, too. They keep the fish houses, distributors, and sellers in business, as well as shipyards, technology suppliers, and even cleaning ladies.

Anyhow, while bycatch is wasteful, and methods of returning fish to the water are, let's say, not so effective at keeping fish alive, the striped bass stocks are not doing real bad. There are alot of other species we need to worry about, including what alot of other people have been mentioning, which is the bait fish. Many mackerel trips are coming back brokers because there's nothing to catch, and the draggers are having a hard time finding haddock because bait stocks are so squirrelly. I think the first step in managing all fish stocks should be working from the bottom up. But what is common sense to most seems not to be sinking in with fisheries management. We'll see what happens in the next couple years.